two. ate.

For those of you who don't know us, we eat at the Left Bank Restaurant in Menlo Park on the first Friday of every month, at 8 pm. We have been doing this for over three years. Why the Left Bank? Because their food is consistently good, hearty bistro fare.

Earlier this year, the restaurant made a major change to it's menu. They put some decently innovative dishes on, took some of the long-time ones off and generally modernized the selection. The food remained excellent and they left enough of our favorites on as well.

Eight weeks ago, they radically changed the menu and we heard that Roland Passot decided to go in a more classic brasserie/bistro direction. Gone were the semi-California-style dishes...in came classics: rillettes (duck, rabbit, salmon), coq au vin, boudin blanc and noir, duck l'orange and more...and for us, it's a hit.

Last month, the boudin noir took centre stage. It was cooked perfectly - soft, creamy. It even had Janet (who kind of recoils at blood sausage) tucking in to bits of it. This month it was the coq au vin for me, the lobster-chanterelle starter for Janet..

So...coq au vin is not a dish that is done very well by lots of places. Over cooked, over sauced, weird reductions...so I was a bit hesitant. However, the Left Bank's rendition blew my mind. A little cast iron pot with two legs and a thigh nestled among a really small bed of pasta with onions and other veg and a sauce was rich and fragrant and tangy. Oh god...this was good and it just got better as you went to the bottom of the pot. Taste: complex; feel: simple comfort food. Janet's lobster dish was very similar in feel: a very succulent dish with some simple and very satisfying touches. A piece of baked lobster with sauteéd chanterelles with a light, almost Americaine sauce.

When we went to Paris a month ago, we thirsted, lusted, dreamt of bistro-style food. Of the nights I cook, I tend to cook in a very bistro-influenced manner. And now, we've got our regular haunt following suit.